


A Study in Knit

by SrebrnaFH



Series: Srebrna's Sherlock Oneshots [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, John's Jumpers, Translation to Russian available, literal fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 07:32:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16300766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SrebrnaFH/pseuds/SrebrnaFH
Summary: Sherlock is quite fed up with John always covering himself with all that bland beige and cream.





	A Study in Knit

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Этюд в оттенках пряжи](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18523804) by [Little_Unicorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Unicorn/pseuds/Little_Unicorn)



> I've been knitting myself a scarf. In cream wool ;) And this happened.

He had been trying for  _days_  to get that jumper with something. Anything to get John to just stop wearing the stupid thing. It covered too much, it made him look like his own grandfather (Sherlock could imagine some moustached Watson ancestor surveying his sheep in a jumper just like that and some ugly, misshapen, woollen trousers) and it was so bland it made John look completely washed out.

John was surprisingly sneaky and nimble when it came to saving that particular garment from Sherlock’s traps. The dropped glass of red wine went into the sink, instead of the sleeve and John actually  _thanked_  him calmly for helping to clean the table. The curry was avoided and then placed in the fridge with a calm admonishment of “if you don’t like it, don’t waste it, you can eat it tomorrow”. Even the most obvious way, stealing the offending piece from the laundry, was blocked, because John had splurged on having the stupid thing laundered somewhere close to his surgery.

It was  _aggravating_.

It was a season-long torture to watch the soldier cover himself in layers of so-called “natural” beige and apparently feel  _happy_  about it.

Sherlock watched John burrow in the folds of the cream wool and  _hated_  the thick knit, the silly cables, the very neutralness of the stupid, stupid yarn. He hated - with passion - the anonymous family member who had sent John that abomination of knit, that absolute ugliness of handmade.

He hoped the next time they went running after a criminal, John would slip - not painfully, but just enough to trip and fall into a muddy puddle. He didn’t really want his friend to be hurt, but he dearly wished for the stupid stupid jumper to just disappear. Stop being. To just cease.

And there was a chase, in fact. A chase down an ugly, muddy and slimy alley. A perfect place for John to finally say goodbye to the lovecraftian horror of home craft.

And Sherlock tripped.

He tripped and slipped.

He tripped, slipped and fell into a muddy puddle.

The criminal, however, ran smack into John’s outstretched hand - “smack” being the most important sound in that particular encounter.

In seconds, John was hauling Sherlock up and helping him regain his breath after the most unfortunate meeting with wet concrete. In a minute, his wet Belstaff had been torn off him, a large cotton handkerchief was used to dry off the traces of water from his hair and then he found himself being very efficiently dressed in John’s jumper.

John’s ugly, terrible, awful oatmeal jumper.

John’s fluffy, soft and cosy oatmeal jumper.

He shivered as John zippered his jacket again and picked up his Belstaff, folding it in such a way that he could avoid touching the dirty parts completely.

Sherlock swallowed and wrapped his arms around himself, slightly stunned by the warmth and softness that hugged him in effect.

“Ahm…” he tried to say something, but it still hurt to breathe, a bit.

“Just stay like this. Wool is really good at keeping you warm” John drew him closer and rubbed his shoulders lightly. “I don’t want you catching a cold and in this thin shirt you’ll be a prime candidate for pneumonia if you try to put the wet coat on again. Lestrade will be here any minute, we just need to make sure our friend here is not going anywhere.”

“S-soft” he managed to say finally.

“Right? Aunt Marge wrote she is really bored in her retirement home, so she learnt how to knit and is now sending these to everyone in the family. She says anything harsher makes it impossible for her to knit with it, so we kind of win twice - she has something to do and we get the absolutely best jumpers in the world. I think this is lambswool mixed with mohair and merino, or something like this.”

He shook a bit, leaning closer to John, basking in the warmth of the steady, dependable body next to his.

“B-but why  _cream_?” he simply had to know  _that_.

John made an amused noise.

“It’s the natural colour of the wool. I don’t like the way dyed wool smells.”

“Oh.”

He had a lot of new information to add to his file on John Watson and his ugly, disgustingly soft and cuddly jumpers.

But for now, he would wait for the police to come and try not to melt from the overwhelming comfort surrounding him in a cloud of light beige.


End file.
